[NTC2015-SU-R-08] intelliRoute: A Prototype Mobile System for Non-recurrent Congestion Mitigation Driven by Crowd-sourced Data

This research seeks to develop a smartphone-based prototype system that supplements the 511 system to improve its real-time traffic routing service to state highway users and mitigate non-recurrent traffic congestion.

The development of the proposed product shall not require any hardware investment in the current 511 system; the maintenance and further improvements of the Smartphone application could be done through software upgrades, which would make the application reusable for future developments. Finally, the application would provide a critical piece of the long-term push toward enabling the advanced data communication capabilities of the 511 system.

The proposed research will result in huge economic savings for the transportation industry (e.g., thousands of tons of reduced fuel wastage and emissions, millions of vehicle-hours travel time savings of motorists, less operational costs for freight companies, and reduced economic loss due to less secondary incidents). Such benefits will increase greatly in future, with an expected increase in traffic on state highway network. The proposed project will also have a significant impact on the economy by enhancing mobility and predictability of travel, creating new employment opportunities, and reducing energy consumption, waste products, and adverse environmental impacts. This will help in our conservation efforts for a clean environment and better quality of life.